When we hear the word Virtual Reality (VR) we may quickly imagine action-packed video games or flight simulation training. That is true that VR has indeed provided an amazing environment for games and simulation, but it also has become increasingly popular for other training purposes, including job interview training. VR provides an interactive and immersive technology that allows job interviewees to feel like they are actually in a job interview, feel present in the environment, respond to interview questions, receive immediate feedback and repeat as many times as needed to practice their responses and receive personalized coaching on how to improve.

Following several recent studies on using digital technology for job-interview training, as part of my Ph.D. program, I am currently conducting qualitative case-study research on the effectiveness of VR environments in job interview training. This study initially was intended to focus only on autistic learners, but soon enough opened a new door to a bigger audience including high school graduates, international students and new immigrants.

This presentation discusses the previous studies on using VR environments for job interview training, a demo of the new VR-JIT (VR Job interview Trainer) application, and the recent findings of the pilot study and how it is the base for larger-scale research.